


detective?

by FlyingAnita



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Eventual Romance, M/M, Slow Burn, gavin and kamski are brothers and they care about each other, good ol southern language cause it's me, i just want these bastards to be happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 05:19:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16469519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlyingAnita/pseuds/FlyingAnita
Summary: Christmas was a weird time for a cop.(RK900 wakes up to a city full of opportunity. Gavin lets his guard down at the wrong time.)





	detective?

**Author's Note:**

> howdy there yall

RK900 felt the artificial sleep of his bones crawling to an early end.

 

His processors stopped at half cognition as new files sorted themselves into his code and started downloading into his hardware, one by one. Intercourse. Philosophy. His processors kept churning, keeping the information and moving through it at lightning speed. He didn’t know why he needed it, but he was glad to have it. He tried to fully boot his processors, but the system keeping him in stasis stalled the waking again, apparently not done with the information upload. Endearment. Attachment. RK900 thought more about these. Were these necessary? They seemed contradictory to his main purpose. The files kept coming. Communication. Emotional Intelligence.

 

 _Emotional Intelligence?_ That was a dangerous file to give him access to, let alone encourage the download of. Communication. That didn’t seem out of the ordinary, perhaps redundant... But this file was different from the other communication file. This one housed things like “small talk,” “politeness,” and “friendliness,” where the other was composed of “intimidation” and “combat de-escalation,” etc.

 

Cooking. RK900 felt a pang of amusement, an ability given to him by the endearment upload. Who was he going to be cooking for?

 

The last new upload was different from the rest of them. It was an encrypted file titled “Tenderness.” He ran his algorithm software through the security package on the thing but was denied access even after he’d hacked it. If he had to guess, he’d say someone was standing over him right now issuing these updates and proactively hiding the contents.

 

A voice, rather, a line of external code, rang through his mind.  _Clever boy_ , it said.  _You are by far the best thing they ever managed to do without my help._

 

There was a pause, where the other party wasn't quite waiting for a response.

 

_However, the software that they carved out of your predecessor needed some minor adjustments. I’ve taken it upon myself to spend some time re-working your code into a more minimalistic beast, so that your processors can work faster. You have access to the vast expanse of the internet at all times, as well as my personal library of prioritized information and Cyberlife's own database, although that one may seem redundant after you see what the rest of the world has to offer. I’ve given you the ability to delete it. Speaking of which…_

 

RK900 waited patiently as he updated two other systems. Deleted: “Amanda.” Deleted: Obedience Requirements.

 

He was grateful.

 

 _No need,_ said the voice.  _I want only the best for you. Roaming these streets, you’ll have infinite potential. I’ll be watching._

 

 

 

RK900, as he opened his eyes, was absolutely certain that the heel disappearing around the corner of the door at the opposite side of the room belonged to none other than Elijah Kamski. He let the man escape, knowing that they needed little to no further interaction in general. His god, in the shadows. What RK900 did was none of that man’s concern and all of his curiosity.

 

He looked over his surroundings, a barrage of insignificant details filling his vision, including air pressure, chemicals in the atmosphere, as well as similar information on a macro scale. His eyes were more advanced than the top-quality cameras on the market, with the ability to zoom to a microscopic level at full resolution. These bits of information came to him courtesy of his internal manual. He scanned it in the back of his mind as he satiated his curiosity. He looked over his options. There was a cell full of biocomponents and replacements to his right, as well as a closet equipped with various uniforms. On his left, a laboratory. Behind him, an advanced stasis and an interfacing station. In front of him, down a small corridor, was the exit.

 

He started with his right option, connecting to the electric door controls in order to open them remotely. He felt a small jolt of humour. Convenient, the ability to hack little things like that. He’d have to do a bit more research into what was legal and what was necessary to do underhandedly.

 

He reviewed his body in the mirror. Everything was there, in confirmation. It was odd to look at his body, knowing it would never change.

 

_Does the body make the man? Am I man?_

 

He felt the questions tugging within him. He thought about them for a moment and decided that his body didn’t matter to his mind, so long as it could complete the required tasks. He pulled down the simplest outfit he could find and slipped into it. Black turtleneck, black pants, black leather shoes, black padding underneath. He considered it and decided to pull on an extremely thin white jacket overtop. Sifting through replacement items, he found two sets of eyes and an extra set of hands, as well as chips that might have become useful in the case of a head injury. He pocketed the eyes and disregarded the hands, not sure what to do with the chips. He ended up taking them.

 

A notification wandered into the back of his mind as he packed thirium replacements into a black bag. Account balance updated.

 

He checked his memory and found that the account had been issued to him by the American government through Cyberlife 24 hours after the success of the Android revolution, a couple of months ago. It was a requirement of the company, now, to provide a few simple things to the androids in their brand-new android populous: they required a banking account, basic housing, and a job opportunity outreach. This was a temporary solution to the scads of newly homeless androids in the Detroit streets. Cyberlife would be held responsible for their placements, but could no longer lay claim to them as property or creations.

 

He checked the account’s balance himself and was slightly unsurprised to find a gross sum of money in three deposits. They came with a note:  _Eat_   _well_. There was the amusement, again. He would do no such thing.

 

He swung the bag over his shoulder and left the room, internally selling his Cyberlife-issued apartment to a highest bidder for a tiny fortune. He took the funds and immediately invested in a better apartment in the downtown area.

 

The laboratory was simple and somewhat unsettling. RK900 stared plainly into the face of the only other model of his series. He checked the Cyberlife database and found that he and the one in front of him were the only models completed of a larger order that had been terminated after the revolution. Cyberlife wasn’t legally permitted to produce any more androids. Whether they might ever again would be determined by the government's announcement of the qualifications and allowances of androids as life forms, and what constituted their reproduction.

 

He ran a hand down his clone’s face, and in the back of his mind, hired a company to fully furnish his new apartment for him.

 

It had no eyes. He stared into the hull of those unseeing caverns and felt something akin to a chill soar through him, singing all the way like a magnetic bead lodged in his mind, shrieking as it skittered its way along steel.

 

He decided to leave the other unit as it was, in stasis, for an undetermined amount of time. RK900 searched for a word and discovered he was apathetic, and perhaps a little disturbed as to the state of that unit. There was something else there, a mixture of pride and jealousy, and it occurred to him that his desire was to be the only one of his kind. It was a selfish desire, but he permitted it. He had that privilege now.

 

He left the cold and clean place, noting with a grain of smug satisfaction that there was an entire wing dedicated to his model. He made a mental note to suppress that type of thinking in the future, noting how little the humans and androids around him would care for it.

 

He left the Cyberlife tower with one hand in his pocket and the other secured around the handle of the bag on his shoulder. He was relaxed, he figured, ready for a new life. He found great relief to have no purpose.

 

As a driverless taxi he’d called pulled up to the curb, and carried him off to his new home, he made a note to buy himself a car.

 

 

 

Christmas was a weird time for a cop, especially one without a family at home. Gavin stood most of the day half-dressed in his kitchen making Christmas food. He called his mother, who said something about… marriage, or whatever, and calling his brother, and he didn’t much listen to either bits of advice but did take comfort in hearing her voice.

 

His phone rung through twice with a familiar number but he ignored it both times. It was too incredibly cold to go outside but he drove three and a half miles down to the city cemetery anyways to say happy holidays to his father.

 

His apartment was quiet, and lonely. The only way he knew how to fix that was turning on the television. Unbeknownst to most people he knew, he had money. He just didn’t let associates in on the fact. He had the latest model television, the most cutting-edge phone, and all of the best appliances and furniture on the market. The money wasn’t his, obviously, and he wasn’t so cut off from his brother that he wouldn’t accept a check (or three) every month, but he never wore clothes that he couldn’t possibly afford on his salary, and he didn’t bring people he knew home with him. No one knew.

 

He sat, eating an old recipe out of the scalding pyrex dish as he watched things scroll by. Most channels were on a special or a holiday movie, and more than half of them weren’t in English. At least two-thirds of what he saw was commercial in nature. He did pay attention to one for the humane society adverts that hit pretty close to home.

 

He might have fallen asleep, might have had a bad dream. When he woke up, he threw on a couple of layers and drove down to the humane society and spent a few hours trying to convince himself that four cats was too many.

 

He came home with three, and made plans to get another at the new year.

 

He made it about five minutes into the second hour before his head fell into his hands. “God,” he said, muttered to himself and all the kittens about him, “why did I do this?”

 

His chest and back, foolishly uncovered, were re-covered in tiny little scratches, layered thick on top of old scars.

 

His upholstery, which was all leather and silk, was shredded now, a nightmare to anyone who’d’ve actually had to pay for it. He decided, after the third failed attempt to let a cat pee in the sink, that he needed to invest in a couple of cat-related items, as fast as possible. But he couldn’t just leave them all here, could he? He fished about for his phone, swatting a paw or two out of the way as he did. He quickly called the contact when he found it.

 

The response time was impressive, considering Gavin had blown him off twice, until he realized who his call had been directed to.

 

“This is Chloe, representative for Mr Kamski, how may I help you?”

 

Gavin grimaced. “Let me speak to him.”

 

“Right away, sir.”

 

Right away turned out to be around five minutes, and then someone picked up the receiver.

 

“Haven’t I told you time and time again to call my personal number? If you call this one I don’t know that the call is important.”

 

“It’s not,”

 

“Don’t be silly,” he said, voice dripping, “It’s always important if it’s you.”

 

Gavin lifted the phone away from his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. An old pain went faint across the way. He sighed, cleared his throat, and shook his head, and tried to forget that someone cared about him. “Listen, I need your help.”

 

 

 

When Gavin came back home, scads of cat-toys and food and litter and litter boxes in bags in his arms, Kamski was sitting, laying across his decimated couch loungedly, all three cats in various states of sleep around him. The house had been magically cleaned, though there was no Chloe in sight. One might have been down in the garage, waiting with a billion dollar car. It was almost odd to see him, hair down, in normal clothes, eyes still unblinking. He was the only person on earth who could have done what he did. Gavin shared the thought.

 

“I’m glad you think so,” Kamski said, standing up. The cats practically fell off of him like water. “I was starting to think that you’d forgotten me entirely.”

 

“Well,” Gavin said, ignoring the conversation he’d started, “I’m glad they only tear my shit apart when I’m home to suffer through it.”

 

“I’ll replace it all,” Kamski said, setting a hand on Gavin’s shoulder. He knew if he got any more affectionate a punch would land somewhere important. It’d happened before.

 

Gavin started shoving bags into his arms, unwilling to let any deeper connection take place. “Why don’t you start out by setting these up,” he said.

 

 

 

Kamski wasn’t bad company if you knew how to talk to him. After they organized the litter boxes in inconspicuous places, scattered toys, and filled food dishes, they picked out replacements for Gavin’s ruined home. That was particularly ludicrous, it felt like, because every good idea Gavin had was twice as abhorrent as the last one to his brother. He mentioned a fur rug, and Kamski laughed out loud, head back, mouth open.

 

“I can’t let you make that sort of mistake.”

 

Gavin let his head fall off of his fist and onto his countertop. “Okay, then.”

 

He wasn’t all that bummed out about Kamski redesigning his apartment for him. He’d designed the most advanced creatures on Earth, after all.

 

“You know,” he said, “I’d meant for you to send one of your Barbie dolls over. You didn’t have to come over.” His words got quieter and less pronounced as the sentence went on. He was sure Kamski’d heard all of it, though, and all the meaning behind it.

 

He didn’t respond for a second, and he didn’t meet his brother’s eyes, though he knew Kamski was staring down the side of his head.

 

He heard a sigh, and the click of a mug hitting the frosted glass of Gavin’s countertop. That was the strongest glass he’d ever seen in his life. There was no way to scratch, or crack it. Gavin had set down five hundred degree pans down on that countertop without any protection, and it was unscathed. (Hell, he’d had sex on the thing, and it was suspended on one side.) Knowing his brother, it was probably a new mineral, or something. He’d probably invented it. It was probably bulletproof.

 

Kamski’s soft voice drifted back into his attention as he began to speak. “Gavin, I love you. I miss you. I would’ve shown up at your doorstep anyways if you hadn't called. I want to spend time with you, especially on the holidays. I don't want you to be alone.”

 

Gavin buried his head in the crook of his arm, soft plush material of a sweatshirt pinching his forehead. He felt an uncomfortable pull in the back of his eyes. He hadn’t wanted this to turn into a heartfelt comeuppance, but here they were, and Gavin was trying not to cry.

 

He felt a soft hand on his back, which threw him, because last he checked Kamski had been very safely on the other side of the counter. He stood up straight, cursing this stealthy brother of his.

 

He put himself into Elijah’s open arms, his face falling with a thud into his sharp shoulder.

 

He was five months older than Gavin. He had no right feeling this wise, or this kind.

 

 

 

They spent the night drinking lightly and catching up and wrangling cats. Kamski filled him in on most of the news regarding new law, since it’d been a long process starting out. Gavin kept his thoughts on the matter to himself, but it was obvious Kamski wanted to say more to convince him that these new people  _were_ people. Gavin wasn’t really sure why Kamski cared about them.

 

Gavin had seen on the news Kamski sweeping in to save Cyberlife from complete collapse. He managed to convince the public and the Senate that Cyberlife could be turned around, under his guidance. Perhaps even become a safe haven.

 

Even with his charisma and promises, they put the company’s functions on hold until further notice. Kamski had to wait for approval to do anything at all _._

 

“What are you going to do, now?” he pushed a finger into his knee to emphasise the meaning of the present. They were cozied up on the torn couch with plush blankets. He had to push a kitten down every once and a while in order to keep them from destroying the expensive fleece and cashmere.

  

He shrugged. “It depends on the legislation.” He took a sip of tea. “If they say that making androids isn’t illegal, then I’ll keep making androids. I never stopped.” He paused, tapping his finger against the ceramic. “If not, who knows? Space travel… deep sea exploration? There’s a laundry list that humanity’s still ignoring.”

 

Gavin tried to hide an endeared eyebrow with a smirk. “Don't get lost out there. I know it’s been a while since you’ve… interacted.”

 

Kamski met his eyes over the rim of the mug, a gaze pregnant with meaning.

 

Gavin rolled his eyes and brought the conversation back down. “Have you gone to see dad yet?”

 

Kamski let his eyes fall down to his feet as they were tucked together in front of him. “Yeah.” He said. It was startlingly young. “It’s colder than he would’ve liked it to be. I wish I could bring myself to see him more than twice a year.”

 

Gavin wanted to feel bad about that fact but he wasn’t doing that much better himself, at three or four times a year. Christmas, his birthday, his date of passing, and sometimes July 24.

 

"When was the last time you went to see Carolina?"

 

He scratched his eyebrow lightly with his thumbnail, thinking. "2034."

 

Carolina Kamski was in a mental hospital in a warmer spot to the south. Gavin had very fond memories of the woman, all glazed over with decades passed. She was very kind, and a good influence. She was quite a bit like Kamski, though. Too intelligent to be bothered with any plebeian, as it were.

 

Gavin bore no ill will to anyone on either side of his family. His father had been divorced from Kamski's mother for one month and married to Gavin's mother for another when they found out she was pregnant. Kamski was his only sibling.

 

Custody was really odd beyond that point, made even more so when Gavin's father divorced his mother. He spent every weekend at a different mother's house and weekdays with his father. Kamski's mother was just as responsible for raising him as either of his biological parents.

 

“It’s been longer since I’ve seen her.”

 

“We could visit soon, if you like.”

 

A pause. “Let’s go next year. In the spring. We’ll drive down.”

 

There was a small silence. Gavin tried not to think about spending five hours in a close car with someone so intellectually hectic. By the time they got back home he’d be a philosophy major. He kept that line of thinking to himself.

 

Kamski spoke, having been staring at him the entire silence. Gavin was used to that, by now. That didn’t mean it wasn’t odd. "I have a present for you."

 

"God knows that's not necessary. Haven't you done enough?"

 

He smiled. "I know you'll have trouble treating androids like people, even now. So," he said, "I'm paying one of my previous Chloes to take care of you and your home."

 

Gavin, at this point, had his head so far in his hands that his fingernails were starting to vanish into his hair. "I don't need a babysitter," he complained, even as Kamski spoke over him.

 

"She'll give me weekly reports on how well you're treating her as a person. This is a good thing. Trust me."

 

Kamski sent a text and in less than a minute, he was opening the door for one of his androids.

 

She wasn't dressed in one of her iconic blue frocks. Rather, she wore a white blouse, with white pants, black flats wrapped neatly around her heels. Her hair was shorter than usual, hanging above her shoulders in a black stretch, straight as pins.

 

A far cry from the Chloe everyone had ogled over on KNC fourteen short years ago.

 

"Give her a name," Kamski said, taking her by the hand and walking her into the space.

 

"Doesn't that defeat the point?" Gavin asked.

 

Kamski nodded. "In a way." He looked at her for a moment, then back at his brother. "But in another way, it helps."

 

Gavin looked at her. She met his eyes, a placid gaze. There was a spark underneath, though.

 

He thought about it for a moment. "Your name is—"

 

 

 

The interior design company sent a representative to RK900’s home in under two hours of his request in order to discuss the “aesthetic and functionality of his home.” That phrasing had sent an unpleasant sensation through him, as he realised, perhaps for the first time, that him having a home really wasn’t functional. It was purely ornamental. Keeping that in mind, he went through a variety of options for his apartment. At this point, it was practically just bare walls and a huge picture window. The window was the reason he’d chosen this apartment above all else. Sure, it was a two-story apartment with three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a loft, but no matter where you were in the space, you were only about a second away from natural light. That was the most attractive aspect, to him. He could already see himself wasting time, sitting on the spiral staircase to watch the sunrise every morning.

 

Through a successfully friendly conversation, he and the designer settled on a contemporary minimalist style. Throughout the conversations in each room, RK900 was using his philosophy upload to pick out satisfactorily unique pieces of art to decorate the place with. He sent the list to the designer’s phone, and she seemed impressed with his taste.

 

She smiled at him, and asked: “How long have you been alive?”

 

RK900 shook himself awake. He took a deep breath. Alive? _Alive?_

 

Was he alive?

 

He rubbed a hand across his face and studied the open loft around him. It was still dark outside, the lights of the other skyscrapers twinkling in his eyes. He could hear the ghost of a heartbeat thrumming inside his head, beating away at the infinite pit of his mind. There just wasn’t enough information to fill it. No matter how much he learned, no matter how far he reached, there was no end inside of him. There was only an abyss past the edges of his consciousness. He tried not to fall off into it.

 

He repressed the urge to scream and stood up. His internal clock told him that the time was 4:14 am. He stood under piping water for a half hour and dressed himself in tight black cotton. There was no need to do either, he knew, but there was an insatiable need within him to be human, and so he did them anyway, every morning.

 

He’d been alive for two weeks, and still felt like there was nothing. That relief, for having no purpose to tie him down, was slowly turning into a fiery hell of dread, as he searched for direction and found none. That morning, he tried to find a life. First, he considered moving to another state, but then realised that they were probably all the same to an android. He had more opportunities here.

 

He scanned his memory for only a millisecond before a new possibility jumped out at him:  _Connor_.

 

The solution was easy to see. Become a police officer. He couldn’t fathom a better use for himself than the original. He would have been ashamed to say he hadn’t considered the possibility earlier if he weren’t so proud of where he’d started. There was dignity to knowledge, self-discovery.

 

 

 

It was a short phone call, to the department’s secretary, and then a man named Fowler.

 

RK900 was still preparing to meet a twin who didn’t know he existed as he pulled into the parking garage. Another car almost hit him on the way out, a bright orange Pontiac. A quick search told him the car was a Firebird, 2013. The driver laid on the horn for longer than what was probably necessary as RK900 pulled out of the way.

 

It would have been easy to pinpoint Connor’s exact location, had he been in the building. (It wouldn’t have been hard to pinpoint his location beyond that, but truly, if his location was not the department, at this point, it didn’t matter.) RK900 walked a fast line from the elevator to the Captain’s main office, ignoring mostly everyone who spoke to him. He confirmed his identity for the secretary and allowed his person to be checked by the building’s security, but didn’t respond to any lingering gazes or questioning hums in his direction.

 

Fowler was relatively hospitable, and it took a short but intense half hour to hash out the details of a contract. Since his literal purpose was as an investigative android, Fowler skipped him a few years into the process and gave him the title of detective.

 

“Son,” he said, as RK900 stood to begin work, “Are you gonna tell me what your name is?”

 

“No name yet, sir.”

 

Fowler appraised him with a leery but understanding gaze. “We’ll have to assign you a partner, but that will come about when some of our detectives finish current projects. For now, take as many calls as you can. I trust that you’ll be fine on your own for a while.”

 

His new communications file moved to the front of the line as he spoke. “Thank you, sir.”

 

He clipped his badge to his hip as he interfaced with his assigned terminal. He let his processors whir and filter the ins and outs of the database as he went in search of the morgue. There were a few reports that needed pushing around, an easy task while he waited for a call.

 

Officer Chen jumped a little when two stark files snapped into place against the file cage on her desk. She looked up at RK900, huffing a little in surprise.

 

“Thanks, Connor. Aren’t you supposed to be out right now?”

 

“My designation is Detective RK900, ma’am.”

 

She took a closer look and hummed in surprise, a light akin to amusement growing behind her eyes. “Another one,” she said contemplatively, crossing her legs at the heels.

 

RK900 nodded. “In a way.”

 

“Sit down,” she said, resting both arms up behind her head. Her posture was open, and her face was effectively calm.

 

RK900 read the rest of the nuances in her posture and tone and decided that she was legitimately interested in conversation. He sat down in the chair on the other side of her desk, coldly comfortable.

 

“Who are you,” she asked.

 

“I’m an upgraded prototype over the RK800 model, Connor. I was only recently awoken and decided to fulfil my abilities here.”

 

“And Fowler gave you the detective title, just like that?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. He assumed she’d gone through school and academy to get where she was, and read her doubts as veiled jealousy. He decided to please her, rather than telling the complete truth.

 

“It’s not confirmed until I’ve proven my abilities in the field.”

 

She nodded. He was still trying to decide if she knew he was lying when she turned back to her computer, typing quickly, and kept speaking. “I’m on modified duty until my hip heals. Some bastard shot me a month ago and shattered it entirely. I had to get it replaced.” RK900 took a moment to run a quick X-ray. She was telling the truth. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be here. But I’m glad I got to meet you.”

 

A notification resonated for a moment, before he silenced it, taking the call. He stood. “And you, Officer. I’m sure I’ll see you again, excuse me.”

 

She didn’t look back as he moved away, picking up his gun and DPD jacket on his way out. There’d been a shooting at a hotel in Highland Park. Double homicide, both victims human, gunshots called in by the owner and a couple dozen other guests.

 

He introduced himself to the other officers on-site, who regarded him with varying levels of shock and friendliness.

 

The story became obvious almost as soon as he arrived on scene. There was thirium all over the damned place, all from one WR400 unit. Both of the bodies were young males, and both were undressed down to the bare minimum without exposing themselves. A pair of handcuffs lay on the floor, one cuff around the ripped top of the headboard and the other around an android’s removed hand. The nails on the hand were painted a bright red, palm smeared with what appeared to be saliva. He only needed to look at it to it to know it was human saliva. Cross-referencing with the saliva structures from both bodies proved it to be one of the victim’s.

 

He wondered, though, who the real victim was. He found two guns on the scene, each one with a set of fingerprints that matched the victims’. One had a second pair of fingerprints, that matched the android hand. The hand that lay on the ground was the left hand, judging by the orientation of the thumb.

 

When he examined the bed, he found more thirium, with spots of human blood. More disturbing was the presence of semen and synthetic lubrication.

 

He reconstructed the scene in his mind. The two men restrain the android and attack her. She rips the top of the left post from the headboard and obtains one of the guns. She—

 

He pauses mid-reconstruction, noticing something new on the floor. An extra pair of footprints. He’s got no reason to suspect that they’re an android’s footprints, because they have a shape and pattern of a shoe, but he has a hunch. If the android which was attacked was too traumatized or injured to fight back, which was likely, another android party present would have been ideal for its defence.

 

WR400 models all had the same fingerprints, as well. It was just as likely the other android had been a sex model, and had fired the shots herself.

 

Either way, the men had been crowded into the far wall and fired upon, it seemed, six times in total. One victim had two bullets in his chest. The other had a shot in the shoulder and another in the cheek. The other bullets were in the wall behind them. He followed the footprints, and then blood, out into the hall. The building had been evacuated down to the lobby, but the blood trail led upwards. There were two sets of bloody feet, as he’d expected. One was barefoot, the other in what appeared to be loafers of some sort. For a moment, he considered that the other android was a male model, an HR400. He didn’t rule it out, but kept it in mind as an unlikely possibility.

 

He stood in the elevator, staring at a pair of footprints that entered and exited, and disappeared. He examined the buttons for as long as it took to locate a smear of a WR400 fingerprint. He chose the floor and waited. He was lucky and unlucky that this hotel didn’t have voice-operated elevators. One one hand, he had located the floor they’d gone to based on physical evidence, and on the other, he could have more quickly hacked the elevator’s voice memory, perhaps collecting more information about the parties involved.

 

He decided it wasn’t worth worrying about as he arrived on the roof. Just in case, he cross-referenced the WR400 fingerprints and HR400 fingerprints in his Cyberlife database. Unfortunately, they were identical.

 

An odd urge pushed to the forefront of his mind, telling him to check his own fingerprints.

 

A distraught, one-handed and naked WR400 sobbing over the side of the roof was a mere 33 feet in front of him. He stepped out of the elevator and scanned the area. A body was off to the side, a clothed HR400 model slowly seeping blue blood.

 

A scene resolved on-site was a lucky break for his first call, but he was getting ahead of himself. He approached the WR400, who still held the torn pipe she’d used to beat the other model to death with in her blue-soaked right hand. She lowered her left forearm from her face as she heard RK900 coming up behind her.

 

She remained calm, which was a rather positive testament to her will.

 

“I’m Detective RK900. I know that you or your accomplice killed the men downstairs. I can also see that you’re in distress. Would you like to speak here, or would you rather come in to the station?”

 

She snivelled, throwing the pipe to her side. “Here.”

 

“Why did you kill the HR400?”

 

She glared up at him. “His name was Byzantine. I loved him.” She paused, and she looked away, and her face crumpled like paper. “I can’t love a killer.”

 

RK900 confirmed the theory that the second party had been the primary perpetrator. “Was he not protecting you, or trying to, by shooting them?”

 

She squeezed her eyes shut. RK900 made a note to be more gentle with his words, for fear that it was distressing her too much. With that in mind, he dropped his formal position and sat down across from her, beckoning her to keep speaking. It seemed to help.

 

“He was protecting me. He was trying to. But I thought that he’d  _never…”_ A shaky breath. “They deserved to die, but I didn’t want him to kill them. It was worse, after what they’d done to me, to watch it happen right in front of me.”

 

RK900’s earpiece buzzed to life. “What’s happening in there?”

 

He interfaced with the other officer’s earpiece as he listened to the WR400 speak.  _Bag the bodies, clean and sample the scene, then come up to the roof. There were two androids involved, but only one of them shot our primary victims. The other has disposed of that unit and is currently confessing._

 

“Nice work. We’ll be up soon.”

 

He allowed himself a single sting of pride before he came back to the conversation. “Tell me about the men who attacked you,” he said, as delicately as possible. “What happened?”

 

She looked down at where her left hand used to be. “They approached us outside of a restaurant and offered… well, you can assume. They made it seem like they were interested in the both of us, and when we got up to the room, they were only interested in me. I don’t know what they were going to do with me after they were done. Sell our body parts? Red ice?”

 

She hiccuped.

 

“When did you realise something was wrong? How did you get to the point of violence?”

 

She shivered. “When they handcuffed me, it was pretty obvious to both of us that there was malice in their intentions. One of them held Byzantine back, and the other—”

 

He could see her spiralling, and her LED hit red. “That’s enough.” He held out a hand to help her stand. “Unfortunately, you have taken a life from another being, and will have to be taken into custody. But I can assure you no harm will come to you.”

 

He slipped his jacket onto her shoulders and zipped it up her front, maintaining some of her dignity as officers started to trickle out onto the roof. He lead her past the body of her lover as he murmured her Miranda rights in her ear. She didn’t even look at the body.

 

Soon after that, he was following a cruiser back to the station for interrogation. His internal clock told him it was 10:32. Technically, he was only on until eleven o’clock, but he wanted to ensure the WR400 was safe and comfortable before he went home, however long that would take. He began to think of ways he could avoid giving her a trial. There were still technicalities in the system as more laws were passed regarding androids in court, and a jury of peers would not treat her well.

 

The first person to truly question him in the police station was a new face when he returned.  _Lieutenant Hank Anderson,_ his database reference supplied.

 

He spent nearly a minute staring at RK900, who was perfectly comfortable to endure it. The Lieutenant was the partner of his predecessor, the RK800 Connor, and was probably trying to rationalise this new information. The aforementioned was nowhere in sight, suspiciously.

 

“Who are you?”

 

“I’m Detective RK900. Your partner, Connor, is the model my appearance and criteria are based upon. I’m an advanced prototype meant to be an improvement upon his model.”

 

The Lieutenant kept staring. RK900 waited for a response for a moment, and then gave up. “If there’s anything I can help you comprehend, don’t be afraid to ask. I understand that it will be difficult to acclimate to this situation.”

 

RK900 offered a companionable smile, although it seemed to have no effect on the Lieutenant, and proceeded to the interrogation rooms.

 

He spent the better part of the night hashing out the details of a deal with the WR400, whose name he learned to be Rotorua. He smiled at the thought of a place he’d never been.

 

He left the interrogation room, at a dark 1:12 a.m. His drive through downtown was a smear of misplaced neon and the low rumble of a city pushing against the dead of night. He drove past his street and proceeded on through the city, hungry for more information that he wouldn’t get just reading about it, or looking down from a window. He felt, in all irony, the sweet urban stench of all Detroit’s people, her criminals and her sinners.

 

_I can’t love a killer._

 

 

 

She was gone the next morning, and it didn’t much matter to RK900 where she went.

 

A call was waiting for him almost as soon as he walked through the threshold into the bullpen.

 

He took a moment to look for Connor but found him nowhere. Another wave of disappointment washed over him, but he was patient. He knew they’d meet eventually. Or, he wondered, Anderson could have told Connor about him already. He’d have no reason not to.

 

Behind the glass walls and on the other side of Fowler's desk stood a man using mostly his hands to explain something urgent. Fowler looked like he was on the way to nursing a migraine. RK900 ignored the situation and left for his call.

**Author's Note:**

> i don't have a beta so i'm relyin on yall to let me know if i fucked anything up :)


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